


A Very Manly Pursuit

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Series: October Fic Fest [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Castiel, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Art, Artist Dean, Artists, Castiel in the Bunker, Castiel/Dean Winchester in the Bunker, Comfort/Angst, Curious Castiel, Dean Has Self-Worth Issues, Dean Has a Crush, Dean Has a Crush on Castiel, Drawing, Embarrassed Castiel, Embarrassed Dean, Ficlet Collection, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Love, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, One Shot, One Shot Collection, POV Castiel, Post-Mark of Cain, Romance, Sketches, Supportive Castiel, The Darkness - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 08:41:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4953766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason why Dean has standing orders in the bunker that nobody goes into his room without him being present. It doesn't seem to matter to Sam, though, who has become more high-strung and bossy since The Darkness arrived. He sends Castiel with an armload of research material to Dean's room for him to sort through, which means entering the sanctuary without permission. Even so, curiosity has always been part of Castiel's personality. He trips over Dean's secret - literally. A sketchbook. Dean, he discovers, is quite an artist. Not only is he an artist but his book is like a visual diary since before the apocalypse. But why does he hide his gifts?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Manly Pursuit

Uncertainty wasn't normally part of Castiel's repertoire. It was especially true since The Darkness destroyed two-thirds of the planet's population and ability to sustain itself. He acted so often without thought or hesitation to save a life or bring another piece of the spell to Sam. They weren't even sure if the binding spell would work, yet they had to try and Castiel decided to stick with the Winchesters until the end, one way or another.

Namely, he was going to remain by Dean's side as long as the universe allowed. But it was Dean that possessed him with uncertainty that morning. He resisted a rather human impulse to dance from one foot to the other like an anxious child as he stood outside of Dean's bedroom door. Sam had thrust an armload of thick file folders at him in a fever of intense research and sent him into the bunker's residence to deliver the research materials. He'd become such a taskmaster that he often resorted to dishing out orders for both of them. And if Dean or Castiel weren't in the bunker, they returned every time to find more books and files heaped on their beds. At least Castiel didn't actually need to use his bed for sleep like Dean did.

Castiel sighed, his hand around the doorknob but not actually twisting it. He knew how much Dean hated people invading his personal space. They'd had a number of discussions on the matter. Still, he couldn't exactly refuse Sam's grumpy orders because then it would mean attempting to explain the complicated nature of his relationship with his older brother.

All right, he thought to himself, it's a fast in and out trip. Castiel gathered his courage and half expected a trip wire to set off a bomb upon opening the door but, as he pushed it open, he found nothing but darkness and silence. A tiny sigh of relief escaped his lips. Nothing exploded. No poisonous gasses invaded his body, not that it would do any harm. The room looked quite harmless, albeit cold and empty without Dean's presence in it.

Leaving the file folders on the bed seemed like the best idea. Maybe Castiel was a coward but he thought making it look like Sam's work would divert Dean's attitude away from him. Neither of them much enjoyed the regular deliveries of research work from that enormous taskmaster because rather little of it amounted to anything useful. It didn't stop Sam from plowing through every bit of written material in the bunker in his obsessive need to solve the mystery. Each of them felt responsible for unleashing The Darkness but Sam took the burden into such a deep place that not even Castiel understood it.

Worry over the Winchesters distracted Castiel as he crossed the room and rounded the bed to the side unoccupied by piles of clean laundry. His boot caught the hard edge of an object poking out from under the bed and he tripped, catching himself by grabbing the mattress corner.

He bent, reaching under the bed until he grabbed what felt like a book. There wasn't a title or even an embossed Men of Letters symbol at the bottom of the spine like every other book the society owned. No, it wasn't Men of Letters property. It belonged to Dean and he thought enough of it to keep it stashed out of sight, which struck Castiel as quite odd. He glanced over his shoulder at a bookshelf containing meticulously catalogued issues of Busty Asian Beauties. Dean had no shame about leaving his pornography out in the open, yet Castiel tripped over an untitled black hardcover book so important that Dean took the time to hide it.

Curiosity burned in his chest but so did a screaming urgency to put the book back exactly where he found it. If Dean wanted him to look at it, he would have showed it to him. But still, there might have been something important in its pages. Maybe Dean was in some kind of trouble.

That was enough for Castiel's rationale. He dumped Sam's delivery on the bed and sat down next to the heap, only faintly thinking he sat just where Dean slept most nights. The black book opened wider than his lap. He paused for another look at the doorway, one last stretch of his senses to see if Sam or Dean were coming upstairs. Yes, he knew he shouldn't be looking but the idea that Dean had a hidden book could spell danger just as easily as it could have spelled innocence. Human produced novels weren't typically that large. Grimoires used by witches, however, were just that size. It was his duty to watch over Dean but he couldn't protect him without all of the information. Beyond duty, loving the hunter proved just how fragile his life was - a fragility that Castiel never understood completely until he became human for a time.

The first few pages were completely blank, not even lined for writing, and the nature of the book's binding made it impossible to hold it flat. Castiel turned to the third page and the book opened much easier as if large hands had bent it that way. There on the white page, shadows and highlights emerged. Drawings. Lovely, highly skilled, emotionally complex compositions filled page after page, each done in varying types of graphite pencils and charcoal pieces.

Castiel turned the pages slowly with such care that he almost laughed at himself for behaving as if he'd discovered a sacred holy artifact instead of Dean's secret gift for art. There was nothing fluffy or idealistic about his sketches, although a glint in an eye or a light depicted in magick suggested he hadn't completely given up the sense of hope that kept men alive. He began recognizing sketches of himself about a third of the way through the book. Occasionally there were wings flowing around him as if Dean had been struggling to imagine what his angelic body looked like. Traces of his energy marking each page told Castiel he thought he fell short of capturing the angelic body every time.

Once in a while, pages looked like anatomy and figure studies of mythological creatures. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and dozens of other creatures the Winchesters had hunted over the years didn't escape Dean's pencil. The work reminded Castiel of the way Leonardo da Vinci tried to make sense of things he didn't understand by drawing out every minor detail. Energy fingerprints suggested a frenzy of sketching some monsters as if he'd rushed through committing them to paper right after a kill. Those were the tombstones of creatures who met their ends at the barrel of his gun, a silver blade, or an incantation uttered from his lips. He kept an artistic record of his life as a hunter in the way his father kept a written record.

Sometimes there were sketches filling pages of what Castiel decided were Dean's imaginings of the way life could have been. He turned the book sideways to get a better look at a sketched portrait of pretty, curly-haired Jessica Moore smiling up at Sam who wore a suit lacking all FBI ornamentation. That struck Castiel hard in the hollow place where his human emotions once burrowed. A ghostly sensation of regret filled him as he stared at the detailed image of what Dean wanted for his brother.

A few pages of random sketches didn't tell Castiel anything at first until he looked beneath the surface. Pages that lacked themes and merely reflected what Dean saw in everyday life were reflective of lulls in hunting. It was like peeking into what the hunter might have been if he was raised in a normal home by normal parents. Perhaps he wouldn't have felt such a need to hide his artistic talents. Working with hunters for so long told Castiel that anything artistic wasn't accepted in their ideas of manhood. It saddened him. So much talent was diverted into darker things, just the way Sam's talents as a lawyer were never realized either.

He continued turning pages, careful not to disturb the traces of energy Dean left behind, not that anyone could see it besides him. The sketches grew heavier with Castiel's face. His hands seemed to be featured studies a lot too, which felt strange. Turning his real hands over and over revealed nothing special about them, not even when he flexed his fingers or tightened his hand into a fist, but it was obvious that Dean thought enough of their construction to replicate them in several different sketches. Dean sketched his face quite frequently too - eyes looking off to the side and then straight at the viewer. There was something strangely disconnected about seeing himself through Dean's perception but an undercurrent of exposure rippled through him too. It reminded him of being looked upon quite naked.

And there it was. Apparently Dean had thought the same thing. Several pages later, Castiel began appearing without his ever-present suit. He seemed to work up his courage by first sketching him from the collarbones up, and then from the waist up in another one. In a few more figure studies, Castiel peered at himself sprawled on the page in a sideways composition. He lounged on his side, on his elbow, and his knee was drawn up making a triangle out of his leg. Shadows and lines cut rather realistic muscle shapes around his arms, chest, and abdomen.

The organ lying on his thigh from a patch of curling dark hair made Castiel avert his eyes even if it represented his own body. Since when did Dean think of him in those terms? Was it artistic license or was he using the safety of a drawing to ponder things he couldn't allow himself to see in reality?

A second page of him rather nude, followed by a third page finally made Castiel skip ahead by a small handful. He felt suddenly like he'd stumbled onto a diary rather than an art book. No matter how close his bond was with the artist, Dean hadn't invited him to take a tour through it. At first he didn't understand why because the figure studies of mythological creatures were fascinating and useful, but seeing himself in various nude poses told him so many things that he dared not ask before. And Dean hadn't volunteered the information. He wasn't ready to speak of the sketches or why he made them. Still, Castiel pieced it together. The only other nude sketches were of beautiful women closer to the front of the book but they stopped appearing when Castiel's face showed up in bold pencil strokes.

After the shock of his own naked body, another shock assaulted his senses. Blood, body parts, darkness, and people strung up by their wrists and ankles populated the pages. Even the pencil strokes lacked tenderness or gentleness.

Demonic images.

So Dean was still using his sketchbook even after dying and waking into the demon world. The traces of energy stung Castiel's fingers wherever he touched the pages. His grace rejected anything from Hell and caused him pain as a warning to keep his distance, although Dean wasn't a demon anymore. It burned the deeper he went into the demonic phase of the book. More than once, he jerked back his hand as if being scorched by a fire every time he turned the page.

"Cas! What are you doing in here?"

The angel shot up off Dean's bed so fast that most of Sam's research rubble tumbled onto the floor. He should have let go of the sketchbook but it dangled from his fist like a fresh kill while he gaped stupidly at the flustered hunter who knew exactly what happened.

Dean rushed toward him and snatched the book without a word. He slammed it shut and clutched it under his arm as he angled that side of his body away from Castiel. "You snooping in my shit, Cas? What the hell?"

"I didn't ... I...." Castiel stammered. He straightened his coat even though it didn't need straightening. "Dean, I wasn't intentionally looking through your possessions. Please don't be angry."

"Yeah? Was it a good fucking read?" The tips of ears burned so red they went purple and it spread down the back of his neck. He was embarrassed - more embarrassed than Castiel had thought capable of a hunter like him. "You know the rules. Nobody comes in my room without me here. I don't have anything for myself and I just need my own space."

"I delivered more research from your brother." Castiel's long arm pointed out the waterfall of file folders spilling down the side of the mattress to the floor.

Dean rolled his eyes hard toward the ceiling. "God damn it!"

"I tripped over it."

"Huh?"

"That." To make his point, Castiel gestured at the book Dean tried to hide under the thickness of his arm. "I didn't go looking for your book. I tripped over it. When I came around your bed, my foot hit something hard sticking out right there." His long gesture drifted from Dean's arm to the spot where he found the sketchbook under the bed. "It didn't have a Men of Letters symbol on the spine."

"Which means it's personal," snarled Dean. "You had no right."

"Perhaps not but I thought it was a grimoire, not a personal book. You can't deny your habit of fixing one universal problem by seeking magick. The need to protect you and your brother requires all the knowledge, which, again, you have a habit of not communicating to me." Castiel found himself getting irrationally angry even though it was him who got caught red-handed doing something Dean didn't like. "So I saw a book that looked like a grimoire and I looked at it because I need to know what you're doing to have all the proper tools to protect you. I won't apologize for that. I refuse to apologize for taking care of you. That's what you humans do when you love each other. Yes, I looked at your book. No, I wasn't doing it to use it against you later. I know what you're thinking."

An uncomfortable silence bled into the room. Dean didn't look at him as he unconsciously drew the book upward and clutched it against his chest. The desire to protect it like a treasure kept him quiet, contemplative, and tightly wound around himself. Castiel saw the look in him that he felt looking at himself in those sketches - exposed, naked, and easily read. Drumming his fingers on the book cover commenced as his mind worked through a situation that was far more uncomfortable for him than it should have been.

The dust began to settle. Castiel wasn't sure how he knew but a subtle shift in the room felt infinitely more peaceful than Dean's blustery mood when he walked in on him. Of course he knew refusing to apologize for his accidental espionage was probably a stubborn, wrong path to take but he knew he'd pick it up again if he thought it was a grimoire. Least of all the Winchester wisdom amounted to the wisdom to stop dabbling in magick to fix their problems. All three of them knew how desperate they were to lock up The Darkness again. Desperation wasn't a good look on Winchesters. And Castiel knew he wasn't great with wise decisions either but he consoled himself with looking after Sam and Dean. Indeed, he knew he wouldn't apologize for it.

He drifted closer and draped his hand on Dean's shoulders, partially to comfort him and partially to read his mood. Tense, yes, but not a lost cause. And while he clutched the book against his chest, he didn't shrug off Castiel's touch. He seemed not to know what to do.

Finally, he took a breath. "I started drawing when I was a little kid."

"You're skilled at it," Castiel offered.

"Yeah, well...." He broke off as if he resented the compliment. "You think Sammy had it bad trying to get away to go to college. Lemme tell you, Cas, he was a hell of a lot tougher than I was. He got outta the family business."

"Did you want out of it?"

Dean snickered at an apparent unhappy memory. He turned away and took a seat on his bed, finally letting go of his book. "My dad never had a problem with me being artistic 'til I started pulling out my books and drawing in 'em when he dumped Sammy and me off at bars so he could go out on more dangerous hunts. I was a kid but I guess some of the other hunters in the safe houses we'd go to started telling Dad about how I'd turn out like a sissy if he let me keep doing it. He didn't say anything to me about it at the time. I guess he thought I'd grow out of it. I dunno."

Moving slow to give Dean a chance to refuse him, Castiel took a seat on the bed beside him. "But you didn't quit."

"Nope," he replied with a defiant flare in his eyes. "I got better at it. When I was seventeen, I wanted to get my GED and go to art school. Sammy knew it too. He was like thirteen, I think, but he saw me go into battle with Dad. See, what Dad never got was that I wasn't trying to quit hunting. I just wanted a break for a little while. We fought. Sammy watched. Dad said I'd never do anything with a sissy college degree and that was when I found out what older hunters said when I was a kid. So I thought, shit, I ain't gonna be lesser than my Dad to them, otherwise they won't take me seriously when he's gone. I gave it up." He shrugged. "At least as far as everyone else saw."

"I'm glad you didn't quit altogether," Castiel murmured, treading lightly. "Your work is beautiful."

Dean had been lounging back on the shelf built as a headboard on his bed but he tipped his face down to look at Castiel sitting by his knees. For a moment, he regarded the angel curiously. It seemed as if the truthful compliment on his work might have broken through his barriers built over years of the damage inflicted by an equally damaged father. But then he reclined again, looking toward the ceiling with a casual shrug.

"My bid for freedom probably showed Sammy what he needed to do to get his. Least I did that much for the kid. Didn't make it any less rough when he walked away in the end though."

Projecting his own regrets on his brother wasn't lost on Castiel but he chose not to comment on it. Of all the mysteries surrounding Dean, the one thing he knew for certain was not to psychoanalyze him. That set him off like touching a match to a powder magazine. So Castiel merely nodded and mumbled something about understanding how it was to hero-worship a father while trying to break away from him at the same time. That noncommittal response satisfied Dean enough and another coil of tension let go from his presence.

"I really wasn't snooping as you called it," he said again.

"I know," Dean replied after a moment, resolved to being discovered.

"I would never try to hurt you," added Castiel.

"I know that too." His sigh sounded like one of resignation but a little bit of relief too. He fell silent for a moment, studying Castiel without any hint as to what he was thinking. "Cas...."

"Yes?"

"Did you look at the whole thing?"

Flaming heat bled through Castiel's cheeks, remembering the increasingly intimate glimpses of his person throughout the progress of Dean's sketchbook. "I did." There was no sense in denying it if his body's blood flow refused to cooperate with covering the truth. Quickly, he added, "But I thought your technical skills were astonishing for someone with no formal instruction. Truly ... astonishing ... yes."

"Mh-hmm," murmured Dean, contemplating his reaction.

Castiel folded his hands in his lap and averted his gaze. It was going to take some time to work through the implications of what he'd seen and he'd rather do that in the privacy of his own room.

"All right, then," Dean decided aloud. "You gonna pose for me or what, Cas?"

**Author's Note:**

> Will there be more? It's really up to you guys.


End file.
